Hard floor cleaning is traditionally done by first vacuuming the floor, followed by mopping it. Vacuuming removes the coarse dirt, while mopping removes the stains.
These days there are more and more appliances on the market that claim to vacuum and mop in one go. Many of these appliances have a vacuum nozzle for picking up the coarse dirt by airflow and a (wet) cloth for removing the stains. These wet cloths can be pre-wetted, or liquid can be sprayed to wet the floor by user. However, such appliances do have their own share of issues which the user perceives such as maintenance and cleanliness. A quick transition cannot be made from the hard floor mopping to a soft floor vacuuming function.
Several wet mopping devices exist in the market but the classic one is the bucket and mop. The main disadvantage of the bucket and mop principle is that the amount of water transferred to the floor from the mop is difficult to control. This strongly depends on how well the mop is wrung by the user. Some buckets have a mechanical system that helps to wring the mop. Still the amount of water on the floor depends on the force the user puts on the wringer and also depends on the amount of force that is put on the mop by the user during cleaning the floor. This can result in a poor cleaning performance when the mop is too dry but even worse, it can result in damage to the floor when the mop is too wet. The pre-wetted cloths do solve this problem but give rise to another bigger problem. Due to the fact that the pre-wetted cloths can only contain very little amount of water, the surface area that can be cleaned is very limited. This is also the biggest complaint by the user who buys these products. There are several products in the market that try to solve this issue by adding a reservoir and a spray function to the appliance. In this case, the user can spray a certain amount of liquid to the floor when he notices that the cloth is too dry. If this solution is sufficient depends again strongly on the user. Another disadvantage is that it is not a continuous operating system. The trigger for using it is when the performance is already low.
Electric driven floor scrubbers mainly use electric pumps or dosing systems. Besides this solution is rather expensive, these systems are very vulnerable for pollution/clogging, and in common these pumps are not chemical resistant which a big issue is when detergents are being used.
In general a floor in a common household contains hard floor (tiles, laminate, etc.) and soft floors (carpets, floor mats, etc.). Hard floors are cleaned by first vacuuming and subsequently mopping. Soft floor are cleaned by only vacuuming. The currently known appliances that combine a mopping function with a vacuum function are only suited for hard floors.